Jury members of the Martin Ennals Award speak about Razan Zaitouneh, one of three Finalists for the Martin Ennals Award 2016 . Razan Zaitouneh is a prominent human rights lawyer, activist, and journalist in Syria. Razan has dedicated her life to defending political prisoners and documenting crimes against humanity, whether committed by the Government or rebel forces. This video was uploaded on 25 April 2016. The MEA ceremony will take place in Geneva on 11 October.

The 2016 Martin Ennals AwardCeremony, organized annually by the City of Geneva and the Martin Ennals Foundation, will this year take place on 11October, 6.00 pm, at Uni Dufour, Geneva, as thethe opening of the Human Rights Week hosted by the University of Geneva from October 11 to 14 and with the support of the Canton of Geneva.

The laureate will be selected from among three 2016 finalists:
Mr. Ilham Tohti (China) was sentenced to life imprisonment after working for two decades to foster dialogue and understanding between Uyghurs and Han Chinese.

Mrs. Razan Zaitouneh (Syria) was kidnapped after dedicating her life to defending political prisoners and documenting crimes against humanity in Syria.

Zone 9 Bloggers (Ethiopia) have been prosecuted for documenting human rights abuses in their country.

The finalists and laureate are selected by the Jury of the Martin Ennals Award, made up of ten of the world’s leading human rights organizations: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), Frontline Defenders, the International Commission of Jurists, EWDE-Germany, the International Service for Human Rights, and HURIDOCS. The detailed programme of the ceremony will follow at the beginning of September.

Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders

For the conversation in the social media, use the hashtag: #Ennals2016.

On 27 May RIA Novosti picked up the press release by Human Rights Watch calling for four prominent human rights defenders allegedly in custody of an armed opposition group in Syria to be immediately released. HRW together with 45 co-signing organizations states that irregular armed opposition groups in Syria are threatening and harassing journalists and human rights defenders.“Abductions of human rights defenders by armed groups in Syria are an assault on the very freedoms the armed opposition groups claim to be fighting for”. Almost six months a group of armed men kidnapped human rights defenders Razan Zeitouneh [or Zaitouneh], Wael Hamada, Samira Khalil, and Nazem Hammadi in a city outside Damascus, then controlled by a number of armed opposition groups, but there has been no information on the status or whereabouts of Zeitouneh and her colleagues, and no group has claimed responsibility for their abduction.

[reposted as it seems that the link no longer worked – why? – Syrian secret service THAT sophisticated??]

After more than a month the abduction of 36-year-old human rights defender Ms. Razan Zaitouneh in Syria continues to go unsolved. She became part of the statistics herself that she was gathering inside Syria. Now part of ‘the missing’ inside her country Zaitouneh was joined in her abduction by her husband Nazem al-Hamadi, along with reform activist Ms. Sameera Alkhalil along with lawyer and poet Wael Hamada on December 9, 2013 in the Damascus suburb of Douma city. Just before she recorded this video message for the FIDH:

On 9 December 2013, 4 human rights defenders [Ms Razan Zaitouna, Mr Wael Hamada, Mr Nazem Hamaadi and Ms Samira Khalil] were abducted by masked armed men and taken to unknown whereabouts in Syria. They were kidnapped from the offices of the Center for Documenting Human Rights Violations in Syria, located in Douma. Razan Zaitouna is an award-winning human rights defender who worked on the rights of political prisoners in Syria before the revolution, and continued her activities throughout the peaceful uprising in 2011, founding the ‘local coordination committees’. In 2011, she received the Anna Politkovskaya award “RAW (Reach All Women) in WAR” and in 2013 the International Women of Courage Award. Wael Hamada is an active human rights defender who had been kidnapped by the authorities in 2011 for his legitimate work in the defence of human rights in Syria, and Nazem Hamaadi is a well-known lawyer and poet, respected for his defence of detainees who were arrested in Damascus during the revolution. Samira Khalil is a human rights activist and a member of a peaceful political opposition party in Syria.